27th Sunday in Ordinary Time October 4, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Where is the fruit? Did the tenants refuse to give the vineyard’s produce to the owner because they were greedy and wanted to keep it for themselves? Maybe. It says they killed the owner’s son because they wanted his inheritance… which is a greedy thing to do, but the son’s inheritance isn’t the fruit. The owner eventually comes back and kills them for what they did, but it never tells us what happened to the produce they were supposed to give him. So, where is the fruit?
Jesus concludes the story by saying the kingdom will be “given to a people that will produce its fruit.” Kinda sounds like the evil tenants never even produced any fruit at all. Maybe that’s the reason they killed the messengers. Maybe it was more than greed. Maybe they never had any fruit and were furious that their failure would be exposed so they killed to cover it up. That certainly lines up pretty well with the first reading about God’s anger towards the unfruitful vineyard.
“Where is the fruit?” It is a question we should be prepared to answer and a question we should be willing to ask. Obviously, I’m not talking about literally running a vineyard or an orchard. Yes, God cares about literal, physical grapes – we do need wine in order to have Mass after all – but he cares far more about a different kind of fruit. At this point, there should be at least some tickling in the back of your mind, some recollection or memory of the other places that the bible and our faith talks about fruit.
Other than this parable, the two most well-known passages about fruit are the Last Supper and St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. At the last supper, Jesus tells the apostles to obey his command to love one another so that they can “bear fruit that will remain” (Jn 15:16). Ah, that’s why the tenants in the parable don’t have any fruit to give to the owner – they don’t keep God’s commands and they don’t love one another.
So, in an answer that should surprise no one, the point of the story is that we should love each other. If you didn’t know by now, Catholicism is all about love. At the final judgment, God will ask us “where is the fruit?” The only answer that matters is our ability to point to love. Even before we die, our ability to answer that question is the best way to live a good life, a fulfilling life here and now. Even secular psychology knows that love is the number one key to happiness.
But, when we say the fruit that matters is “love,” what do we mean by that word? And how do we produce it “at the proper times?” Love is not a feeling, but a choice, the choice to do what is truly good for others. The other famous passage about fruit in Galatians is particularly helpful here: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,” chastity (5:22-23). While the fruit that matters is love, these other words – patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, chastity, self-control – they flesh out what we mean when we say bear fruit in love. These words refers to a habit, a character trait, a virtue. Being “generous” is not a feeling, it’s a way of acting. Self-control is not a single decision; it’s a way of life. No one is born with self-control or generosity, they cultivate it. It is the fruit of repeated choices to act generously, to exert control over ourselves so we can do what is good, so we can stay focused on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise.
If you’re working at a business and the boss comes to you and says, “show me the money you made this quarter,” you’d know what to do. Give him the reports, show him the accounts. If he came to you and said, “show me how much generosity, patience, and kindness you have from this last quarter” – what would you do? If he said “show much how much love you have,” what would the result be?
Because that’s what God is going to do. It’s actually what he’s doing right now. Why do you think we “make” you come to Mass every Sunday? For money? It’s easier to give online and for a long time, the Mass didn’t even have a financial collection. No, you and I are tenants in the Lord’s vineyard. Every Sunday is the “proper time” to give the Lord our produce. We called the middle part of Mass an “offertory” for a reason, we are here to offer the Lord the fruits of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
If we repeatedly show up with no fruit, if we refuse to show up, if we abuse and ridicule and harm the Lord’s messengers out of shame and anger for exposing our lack of fruit, well… then we’re not going to like what happens when the owner, when Jesus Christ comes back.
But here’s the good news: unlike money in a business, unlike crops on a farm, there is nothing outside of ourselves that can stop us from producing this fruit. You can do everything right and still lose your business in a recession. You can do everything right and lose your crop to drought or blight or flooding. Even worse, you can succeed at everything and find out it’s still not enough. But if you instead labor in the vineyard of the Lord, the vineyard of love and virtue and grace, then nothing can prevent you from bearing the fruit that truly satisfies, the fruit that matters, the fruit that will remain.
That’s what the tenants of the vineyard did not understand. Because they were focused on the fruit of money, power, and pleasure, they could not produce the fruit of love when it was time. They killed the servants because they exposed their failure. When the owner sends his son, they miss the point again. They still want more wealth, power, and pleasure. Instead of seeing the Son for who he is, they just see his inheritance. They couldn’t get enough from the vineyard, so maybe they can kill the Son to gain his inheritance; maybe that will finally be enough… But it isn’t, of course. It only leads to their own deaths.
We killed Jesus for the same reason. Everyone who has ever sinned shares the guilt of killing him. His holiness exposes our wickedness. Our attachment to worldly fruit – to wealth and power and pleasure – blinds us so much that we’d rather kill Jesus by choosing to sin again, to think “maybe this time will be enough.” That is the anxiety St. Paul tells us to avoid in the second reading – not the feeling of worry, but the choice to rely on worldly ways of thinking and worldly ways of acting instead of humbly relying on God’s grace to help us bear fruit in love.
So, I ask you with all seriousness as we are about to begin the offertory of this Mass. Where is the fruit of the past week? In your family, where is the fruit of patience? In your workplace, where is the fruit of kindness? In your friendships, where is the fruit of truth and honor? In your secret moments, where is the fruit of faithfulness? In your community, where is the fruit of generosity? In each and every part of your life, where is the fruit of sacrificial love?
And if it makes you anxious to realize you have none… don’t be! It is not too late, you do not have to make the mistake of the tenants in this parable. As St. Paul says, “in everything” – even in your sins and failures – “by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” Think of God’s gracious mercy, remember the excellence of his grace. We killed the Son because we had no fruit to give, but he rose from the dead like a plant from a seed. Rise with him by repentance and the sacraments and by putting love before success so that when God our Father asks you, “where is the fruit?” you can tell him without fear “with Jesus Christ your Son in whom I find my peace.”